From the guy who brought you Derelict, the Prometheus / Alien mash-up, previously covered by this site, comes a new edit of Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.

Vimeo user @JobWillins (real name Daniel) has largely ditched the “out there” wackier elements of B v S, such as the desert dream, the “Meta Humans” e-mail, the senate hearing (no more “granny’s peach tea!“) to fuse a tighter, logical progression from Man Of Steel‘s “alien encounter” set-up. The end result is a satisfying whole that redeems Superman, grounding him once again as a sympathetic character struggling with his place in the world, whilst Bruce Wayne’s distrust and motives retain a plausible logic of their own. He is driven by survivor’s guilt, not led by the nose by Luthor’s machinations. Freed from the role of protagonist to supporting player, his Batman plays better – by juggling a few scenes, that “One year later” title card implies how embittered and reactionary he is now, lashing out at a world that really doesn’t make sense unless he takes charge.

Daniel says:

“Like many, I was less-than-enamored with Batman V. Superman. The Ultimate Edition was much more coherent, but it was fundamentally the same film. This was a very dark story about Batman wanting to kill Superman… and Superman being kind of a dick most of the time. And while I wasn’t a huge fan of Man of Steel either, I did think it had some pretty great Superman moments, which BvS lacked. I decided to try to combine material from both films, focusing on their strengths and streamlining the narrative to the rise and fall of Superman.”

“…because the major threads that lead to the 3rd act of Batman V. Superman came directly from the battle in Metropolis (the crashed Kryptonian ship, the Kryptonite from the world engine, Batman’s distrust of Superman’s power) I chose to hone in on those story points as the core of the narrative for Man of Tomorrow. Several scenes were reordered or reworked to fit the new narrative structure and better weave the material from the two films together.”

To tighten run-time and flow of narrative, a few favorite moments from Man Of Steel have had to bite the bullet. Hardly any Fiora, for instance. Krypton scenes smoothly chopped into the titles and narrative as pieces of exposition. Sadly Clark’s truck bending revenge on a nasty customer in the diner had to go.

The Superman rescue montage has been pleasingly placed directly after Lois’ line “Welcome to the planet,” from Man Of Steel, accompanied by that film’s wonderful uplifting theme, lessening the distancing effect of the God-like figure from B v S. Bruce Wayne is intercut into the Man Of Steel narrative – fighting crime as Batman, glancing up at Zod’s ship in the night sky, and of course, throughout the Metropolis dust-up. Interestingly, Daniel excised Superman snapping Zod’s neck, implying he dies from the impact of their crash into the railway station (Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL’s “Beautiful Lie” plays wonderfully over both Lois comforting Superman, and Bruce Wayne comforting the little girl in the wreckage of the Wayne building).

Daniel writes:

“The musical sequence Zod’s death leads into is about cementing Bruce Wayne’s presence in the film and beginning the Batman/Superman conflict that continues through the 2nd act. It was very satisfying to see how well Zimmer’s score played to this sequenceand introducing the theme here helps when it’s reprised at the end of their fight.

Rather than a climax to the film, the battle of Metropolis is more about setting the table for the rest of the narrative. It reveals Superman to the world and leaves the Kryptonian scout ship, world engine, and Zod’s body for Lex Luthor to plunder. It also establishes the conflict with Batman. I tried to make it less about Superman’s choice to kill Zod (and ultimately choose Earth over Krypton) and more about his choice to become Superman (and Bruce Wayne’s witnessing the destruction as motivation for his conflict with Superman).”

Batman’s kill-count is also reduced (Marth Kent’s kidnapper now seems to beat a hasty retreat after Batman takes out the rest of the gang in a (mostly) non-lethal manner).

Anyway, why don’t you click on the edit below and judge for yourself if Daniel’s hard work has paid off?

UPDATE: At the request of Warner Bros, Man Of Tomorrow has been taken down. It is now listed on fanedit.info. for download. You can also temporarily view it via this link (password “peachtea”).

Daniel had this to say on his blog:

“It was fun while it lasted, but Man of Tomorrow has been removed from Vimeo. Thanks to everyone for the warm reception it received. Big thanks to Cinetropolis, The Playlist, Dark Horizons, Superman Homepage, and Forces of Geek for featuring it on their pages.

One of the more common and most flattering things I’ve heard from people is that Man of Tomorrow is now their favorite superhero movie. While it certainly gives me a sturdy shot of pride to hear that, it should also remind everyone of the amount of talent and artistry involved in the production of both Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman. Please continue to support films big and small by seeing them in the theater.”